Author's Note:

Boy, this is a backstory heavy chapter. This will probably be the largest exposition dump since it reveals most of Astrid's backstory. There are a few more secrets that still need to be uncovered. No triggers for this chapter. As always please review and let me know what you think.

Shamira sat there staring at the spectacle in front of her. Wondering if she was hallucinating or not. Because she swore that she saw Steve Rogers standing up on stage surrounded by a bunch of showgirls singing some patriotic nonsense while dressed in a spangled outfit. Except this Steve was like six feet tall and built like a tank. It was unmistakable him though. She would recognize his voice anywhere. Astrid wasn't going to be happy when she saw him.

It had been a month since she was captured by Hydra. Shamira would have gone after her a long time ago if Astrid didn't ask her to stay here. She did have a point. If Red Skull got both of them then he could use either one of them for leverage. Right now they still had the advantage. He didn't know that Shamira was still alive. Meaning that she could get a rescue effort going. The least she could do. Astrid would do the same for her.

"How many of you are ready to help me sock old Adolf in the jaw?" Steve called out. No one said a word. "Okay." He was looking increasingly nervous. Shamira almost felt bad enough to go up and help him. "I need a volunteer." Just as she was about to volunteer another one of the men shouted.

"I already volunteered! How do you think I got here?!" That got the crowd laughing. Only increasing the bad feelings in Shamira's stomach. If Astrid was here then it would be another story.

Steve was booed off stage a moment later. A couple of the guys throwing fruit at him. Calling him names. Demanding he bring back the girls. She quietly watched it. Making a mental note of the guys that gave Steve a hard time so that when Astrid got back she could break out the big needles. Steve may be a giant now but Astrid was always going to have that protective streak. She had lost too many loved ones not too.

It didn't take long for the show to break up as they were in the middle of a downpour. Rain pelting down like bullets. Looking around for him she found him at the back of the stage under cover. Talking to Peggy. Shamira and her had really bonded since Astrid's disappearance. The way Peggy talked about Astrid made Shamira wonder if it was slightly more than a crush. She overheard some of the conversation the two of them were having as she walked closer. Wondering how they could possibly know each other.

"At least he's got me doing this," Steve stated. "Phillips would've had me stuck in a lab." He knew Phillips as well? Really interesting.

"Both those options seem terrible to me," Shamira interrupted. Steve turned to look at her and his eyes went wide as saucers. "By the way how do you two know each other? How do you know Phillips? And more importantly." She gestured to his entire body. "What the hell happened to you?!"

"Shamira?!" Steve asked standing up. Pulling her into a hug. Shamira embraced him as well. Lingering slightly before letting go. It had been far too long. "What are you doing here?"

"Uh, this is my unit. I'm actually meant to be here…. Wait is this what you meant when you said you were selling war bonds?"

Peggy glanced between the two of them. "You know each other?"

Shamira turned her attention to Peggy. "We should. He's Astrid's husband."

Peggy whirled to face Steve. Shamira could almost detect a hint of jealousy in her face. Seemed like Astrid was rubbing off on her. "You're Astrid's husband?" Her mind took a second to process. "That makes sense."

Shamira shook her head slightly. " Back to my original question. How do you know each other? And why are you suddenly massive." A horn honking distracted them for a moment. Carrying in more wounded. If only Astrid was here. The number of men lost by the imbeciles in that tent was staggering. Shamira shaking her head as the so-called medics unloaded more injured from the truck.

"This must be the 107th if you're here," Steve uttered before looking at the medical tent. "They look like they've been through hell. Astrid must be kept busy. And where's Bucky?"

Peggy shot Shamira a look of horror. Shamira covered her mouth with her hand. "God," Shamira mumbled. "You don't know." She swallowed the lump in her throat. "There was a battle against Hyrda at Azzano. 200 men went and less than 50 returned. Astrid and Bucky…. Astrid and Bucky were among the ones that didn't come back. They were captured by Hydra."

Steve was speechless for a moment. "What?!" he finally exclaimed gripping Shamira's shoulders. "What about a rescue effort?!"

Both Peggy and Shamira shook their heads. "Phillips won't allow it."

Steve grabbed a nearby jacket and wrapped himself up in it. "Come on!" He beckoned them to follow him. Walking behind him through the rain. Peggy shielding herself with her jacket. Shamira not caring.

"Colonel Phillips," Steve stated as he approached the main tent. There was an edge to his voice and his stance firm. Steve was actually a pretty imposing guy now. Astrid was really not going to be happy.

"Well," Phillips answered sitting at his desk. "If it isn't the Star-Spangled Man with a Plan. What is your plan today?"

"When is the rescue planned for those captured during Azzano?"

Phillips stared at Peggy and Shamira. "You two and I are going to have a conversation later that you won't enjoy."

"I need to know if there is a rescue mission." His voice was laced with desperation. "My best friend and wife were among those who were captured."

Phillips raised his eyebrows. Throwing a glance at Shamira. She nodded. She knew what he was asking. "You're married to Doc?" He paused as if trying to find the right words to say. Standing up and turning his back to him. Shuffling the papers in his hands. "I've written more of these condolences letters than I can count. But at least I'll be able to hand yours in person. " He placed the papers back down. Turning to look at Steve. "I'm sorry. Truly. She was a good woman and an even better doctor."

"Just tell me if there is going to be a rescue."

"Yeah, it's called winning the war."

"But if you know where they are, why not at least send-"

He walked up and pointed to a map. Clipped to a large stand. Pins stuck all-around in lines. Showcasing the enemies' positions. As well as their own."They're 30 miles behind the lines through some of the most heavily fortified territory in Europe." "We'd lose more men than we'd save." He turned to face Steve directly. "But I don't expect you to understand that because you're a chorus girl."

"I think I understand just fine."

"Well then, understand it somewhere else." He started to walk past Steve. Brushing shoulders with the man. "If I read the posters correctly you got someplace to be in 30 minutes."

Steve looked at the map as if he was memorizing it. "Yes sir, I do." He left and Shamira followed after him. Knowing Steve he was about to do something stupid. Peggy soon followed after her. He went straight into the performance tent where he was throwing stuff into a bag.

"What do you plan to do?" Peggy asked. Putting her coat down. "Walk to Austria?"

"If that's what it takes," Steve replied. "They would do it for me." He wasn't wrong.

"You heard the Colonel. Astrid and your friend are most likely dead."

"They're alive," Shamira stated crossing her arms. "I know it."

"How?" Peggy turned to look at her. "You have been saying this since they have been captured."

Shamira bit her lip. She made Astrid promise that they would leave it all in the past. But that past was catching up to them. Astrid was right. They should have just told them. Honestly, she was surprised that Peggy hadn't figured it out by now. But Astrid didn't exactly advertise it either. "Johann Schmidt won't do anything to hurt Astrid. She will keep everyone safe."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Because Astrid is Schmidt's daughter!" That caught both of their attentions. Steve stopping his manic packing.

"I thought that she said that her father was dead," Steve stated looking straight at Shamira.

"He is. Kind of. Her father died the day he injected himself with Erskine's serum." She stopped herself. She was going to have to explain this better. "It's sort of a super-soldier drug. Only it didn't work and he became the Red Skull. After that, his obsessions really took over and we fled to the U.S."

"The same serum that was given to me."

Shamira's eyes shot up to the top of her head. Oh, that was bad. Really, really bad. But there didn't seem to be any side effects. He was still himself. So far. "That pretty much explains everything. Though as a fair warning Astrid is going to be wary about that." That was an underestimation. She was probably going to freak out.

"Wait if the serum drove him crazy, what's going to stop him from hurting her?" Peggy asked.

"Because he formed Hydra for her. To rescue her from the Nazis' clutches. After she was kidnapped by that bastard." The memory of him still set Shamira's blood on fire. "All this stuff about superior men is about her. It all goes back to her. If anything, it made him more obsessed about protecting her. He won't lay a hand on her. It's why I haven't gone to rescue her myself. If something happened and he captured both of us then he could use me against her. It's happened before." Shamira shuddered as she remembered that dark time. When they were first dealing with the Red Skull. They barely got out. "Right now she's probably the only thing keeping all those men alive."

"Why did she never say anything?" Steve asked. Shamira could sense the hurt in his voice. Those two had one of the most honest relationships. Well until recently where he turned into a super-soldier without telling her.

"Because I made her promise not to. The past was in the past. I thought it was best if we left it there." Still, Steve seemed doubtful. "She wanted to tell you. She really did."

"I'll ask her more about it when I find her."

"Even so," Peggy stated. "The Colonel is devising a strategy. If he detects that-"

"By the time he's done that, it could be too late!" Steve shouted back putting on a leather jacket over his costume. He grabbed his stuff including a shield and a helmet. He all but ran out of the tent. "I'm not going to leave them."

"Steve," both Shamira and Peggy called out to him. Chasing after him. He threw his stuff in the back of a truck. Looking at the two of them he seemed set on his path. The same look he gave Shamira when she left him at the recruitment center. What felt like eons ago. "Astrid told me she thought I was meant for more than this. Do you believe her?"

"Absolutely," Shamira replied. Peggy nodded as well.

"Then you got to let me go." He climbed into the front of the truck. Ready to drive off. Her and Peggy stood by the driver's side door. Ready to stop him.

"I can do more than that," Peggy replied.

"Howard?" Shamira asked.

"Howard."

It didn't take much to wrangle Howard into this crazy plan of theirs. He actually seemed to be happy with it. Next thing Shamira knew she, Peggy, and Steve were all in an airplane with Howard flying. Ready to drop off Steve behind enemy lines.

"So Astrid is Schmidt's daughter?" Howard questioned. "How does she end up in New York married to Steve?"

Shamira let out a sigh. She might as well come out with the whole truth. "A lot of this Steve knows already." Steve nodded but leaned in anyway. Peggy did so as well. Looking forward to hearing about her. "We grew up in Germany together. A small town in the middle of nowhere." Shamira shook her head. It had been so long since she thought about those days. "We didn't exactly have much but we had each other. Our town. Dance." She huffed. "All of that vanished the day Hitler rose to power. You could feel it. It was almost like someone turned on a switch. The Nazis came the very next day." She choked up then. Hating to think about it. "One of the commanders watched Astrid's performance and was enthralled. Was willing to do whatever it took to have her." The atmosphere in the plane grew tense. Steve had his hands balled into fists. Not too dissimilar to how he was when Astrid told him the story. "When her parents said no, he shot her mother in front of her. Astrid cradling her body as she died."

"Bastard," Peggy growled. It looked like she wanted to track him down and beat the man to death. With Steve joining her.

"To avoid any more bloodshed, she agreed to go with him and be his fiancé. I... I lost track of her after that for a few years." One of her biggest regrets. She would always wonder what their life could have been like if she found Astrid sooner.

"Did she ever tell you what happened?" Peggy asked looking white as a sheet. Steve couldn't bring himself to say anything. Looking even worse than Peggy did.

"Bits and pieces. Only what I could stomach. What that man did…." It was enough to induce nightmares. "It was at this point in her life that she was found by the head of the Nazis torture division. Apparently, Astrid was a perfect candidate. Quickly rising through the ranks. Until she was considered one of the best."

"What made her defect?" Howard asked.

Shamira held up three fingers. "She has always held herself to three rules. Never torture for pleasure or revenge. Never torture children regardless of circumstances. And never torture without cause. The Nazis wanted her to break all three."

"What did they do?" Steve asked.

"They brought in a child. A young Jewish boy. Before this point, Astrid had only worked on political prisoners or traitors. But when they asked her to harm this child, she told them to go to hell."

Steve snorted. "Sounds like Astrid.

"I assume this didn't win her any favors," Peggy added in.

Shamira chuckled. "Actually, it resulted in her getting promoted. She turned her attention to the torturer who was giving the exam. From my understanding, it wasn't pretty. No, what really did her in was when she tried to assassinate Hitler with a steak knife."

The plane was dead quiet as they processed what Shamira said. The only sound was the airplane engine. "She did what now?!" All three of them asked.

"By this point, her husband to be was a high-ranking member of the party. He was invited to dinner with Hitler and brought Astrid with him. Though he made one mistake. Astrid had completely lost the will to live. Wanting to do something with her life she tried to kill Hitler. Would have succeeded as well if her former boss wasn't there to save his life."

Peggy looked flabbergasted. "How was she not executed?"

"Honestly? We still don't really know. Though I suspect it was because they wanted to see if they could turn her ability to read minds into a weapon."

"She can do what?!" Peggy and Howard asked. Steve hadn't said anything. His mind a whirl. But Shamira could tell it was bothering him.

Peggy turned to Steve. "She can read minds?"

Steve nodded. "That and more. She told me that much. But that's not the important part of the story."

Shamira continued. "After the incident, they threw her in... prison." That was something Astrid would have to tell herself. Shamira wasn't sure Steve could bear it if she told him where Astrid was really sent. Tortured, enslaved, starved, broken. There was very little that wasn't done to her.

"What exactly happened?" Howard questioned. Shamira hoped he was still going to be able to focus on the plane.

She shook her head. "I don't know. She has never talked about it. Astrid's tough. Like really tough. But the look in her eyes when you ask her about it. It's not like she's sparing herself. It's that she's sparing you. All I know is that when I found her, she was in a ditch surrounded by corpses." That memory would haunt Shamira to her dying day. "The only reason that she was alive is that they shot her in the shoulder." Shamira took a moment to breathe. "I didn't even recognize her at first. She was literally skin and bones. Looking like the corpses she was surrounded by. Only after I took her to her father did she begin to heal. Hydra was a fully-fledged organization but it only pushed Schmidt further when he realized her condition. Once she recovered, we joined the group that helped rescue her. A group of rebels whose mission was to rescue all who had been hurt and terrorized by the Nazis." She gave a wistful smile. Remembering those men fondly. "We were fairly successful for a number of years. Until…" This story was never easy to tell. "Until we were ambushed. Most of our organization was wiped out. Expect for Astrid. Barely making it out alive. Whatever her father did to her kept her going. I only made it out because I was guarding base camp. It wasn't long after that Schmidt died and Red Skull was born. We ran for our lives. Used our old contacts to make it to New York. The rest you know."

The others were stone silent as they processed what Shamira told them. Steve was taking it the hardest. Looking like a ghost had passed through him. Jaw clenched. The sun had just set. It wouldn't be long before Steve reached his destination.

"What's going on with the Hydra camp?" he asked finally breaking the silence.

"The Hydra camp is in Krausberg, tucked between two mountain ranges," Peggy explained. She pointed at her map. "It's a factory of some kind."

"We should be able to drop you right on the doorstep!" Howard called out.

"Just get me as close as you can!" Steve answered. "You three are going to be in a lot of trouble when you land."

"And you won't?" Peggy asked.

"Where I'm going, if anybody yells at me, I can just shoot them."

"They will undoubtedly shoot back."

"With the exception of Astrid," Shamira pointed out. "She will most likely stab you."

"She's not going to be happy when she sees me is, she?" Steve asked. Shamira could see the worry on his face. How even in his large frame he almost seemed to curl into himself. The thought of Astrid not being happy killed him.

"Considering the serum destroyed her father? No, she won't be." She could see the worry increase. He pressed his face against the wall of the plane. "Give her time. She'll probably need to realize that you're still you."

He turned back towards Shamira. A gleam of hope in his eyes. "What made you realize I'm still me?"

"I saw you on stage with a bunch of showgirls. Didn't take long to realize that it's still you. Do be safe though. She would be even angrier if you got yourself killed."

"Well let's hope it's good for something." He tapped on the shield and a metal clang echoed throughout the plane.

"Try to find Astrid first. She'll know her way around the base. Probably would help with sneaking around also."

"Agent Carter? Sergeant Baranowski?" Howard interrupted. "If we're not in too much of a hurry, I thought we could stop off in Lucerne for a little late-night fondue."

Peggy rolled her eyes at him while Steve mouthed fondue at Shamira.

"It's melted cheese," she whispered back at him.

Peggy looked back and forth between Steve and Howard. "Stark is the best civilian pilot I've ever seen." She leaned forward slightly. "He's mad enough to brave this airspace. We're lucky to have him." Steve nodded along not quite believing her. Shamira shrugged. Stark was good. There was no arguing that. He was also a royal pain in the ass but that was occasionally overlooked. "This is your transponder." Peggy handed over a small device to Steve. "Activate it when you're ready and the signal will lead us straight to you."

Steve took it from her hands. "Are you sure this thing works?"

"It's been tested more than you, pal," Howard answered back. Well, that was reassuring. Shamira wondered if it was sheer dumb luck the serum worked on Steve.

The plane rocked and Shamira could hear the sounds of gunfire outside. Seemed like Hydra had found them.

Steve stood up and started heading out the door. Shamira stayed seated knowing that there was no way they were going to be able to stop him. Peggy however did not know this and stood up. Following him.

"Get back here!" she shouted. "We're taking you all the way in!"

He opened the door. "As soon as I'm clear you turn this thing around and get the hell out of here!"

"You can't give me orders!"

"The hell I can't! I'm a Captain!" He placed the goggles over his eyes and jumped out of the plane. Shamira leaned back against the plane. It was all in his, God's, and Astrid's hands now. And knowing Astrid they would all come out fine.